


my heart is not a machine

by fiveyaaas



Series: like clockwork [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angst, Ben is Will, But some characters don’t, Did y’all know i googled when indiana became a state for this?, Eventual Romance, F/M, First Kiss, Five is tessa, Inspired by The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, Side alluther and kliego, benfiveya is end game for this series, the rest will be added in description, vanya is jem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:00:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: “The death of his mother is what prompts him to write his brother in the first place.”The Infernal Devices AU.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves/Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Ben Hargreeves/Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Series: like clockwork [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062092
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: The Occult Academy





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jules5971](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jules5971/gifts), [JjdoggieS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JjdoggieS/gifts), [Chevalier_Barthelemy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chevalier_Barthelemy/gifts), [Blackat14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackat14/gifts), [xxbunnykissesxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxbunnykissesxx/gifts), [Jazzydemons666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazzydemons666/gifts).



> This is dedicated to all my friends that really love benfiveya lmao!!! 
> 
> To clarify, this AU will be based off “The Infernal Devices” series by Cassandra Clare. A lot of things will be adapted to fit into TUA, and there will also be a lot of diverging from the canon of that series. However, the general premise will stay the same.
> 
> As far as characters go-  
> Five is Tessa  
> Ben is Will   
> Vanya is Jem  
> The Handler is Mortmain  
> Allison is Charlotte   
> Luther is Henry   
> Diego is Jessamine   
> Klaus is Nathan   
> Lila sort of acts as multiple characters that work under Mortmain just because we don’t have a LOT of Commission characters to choose from. There will be more later, though. 
> 
> These fic are SUPER self-indulgent, but I hope there will be a few benfiveyas who enjoy them lol!!!

**Prologue**

_ London, 1875 _

When Ben reaches out, angling to kill the demon in front of him, Vanya grabs his hand, keeping him from moving. “We’re being followed,” she mumbles to her friend, nails digging into his palm. “We should go back to the Academy.” 

Ben raises his brows, “And handle Allison realizing we left without informing her?” 

She shrugs, not particularly wanting to argue that maybe they shouldn’t have left in the first place. “If we go back to the Academy now, she’ll be less irritated.”

“She’s less likely to find out if we get in late.”

At Vanya’s frown, he sighs loudly. “Fine, we’ll go back to back to the Academy.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed one day, you know,” Vanya tells him, looping her arm through her own. Ladies aren’t technically supposed to wear what she is wearing, but ordinary people cannot see them currently, having drawn on marks to ensure they couldn’t be seen by anybody human. 

“I don’t see why you are so insistent upon me staying alive, anyways,” Ben grumbles, glancing around the empty streets. In this part of town and at this hour, most people are in their homes. Sometimes, Vanya likes to watch the families walking around, remembering her mother in Russia. She and Ben are both orphans, but he never talks about his own family. He was born in England, but she has never even heard him mention visiting his parents’ gravesite. 

“Well,” Vanya tells him. “For one thing, Allison and Luther would be miserable if I didn’t have you as my friend.”

“They can be dreadful,” Ben says, laughing. “One would think they’d have more propriety.” 

“I imagine if they weren’t so deeply in love, they might.”

“Makes you wonder if falling in love is worth it at all.” 

She laughs, and they walk the rest of the way back to the Academy in silence.

* * *

_ Indiana, 1875 _

The death of his mother is what prompts him to write his brother in the first place. Klaus had moved to England years ago, leaving him and their mother behind. Upon her death, he writes to Klaus immediately.  


Soon, he will make the journey to London, and he wonders if his brother has changed much in their time apart. 

He listens to the pocket watch in his hand, ticking away. It is truly the only belonging he wants to bring along with him, but he set plenty as many clothes as he could into his suitcase as well as some journals for writing his equations on the boat ride to England. 

The company his brother works for, The Commission, have been generous enough to pay for Five’s trip. His brother tells him that they have treated him well, but Five is still hesitant to meet the woman he sings high praise of, his boss. He thinks that Klaus is drinking again, by the way he writes his letters, and he hopes his boss has not been the one encouraging it. 

Right before he leaves Indiana, he visits his mother’s gravesite, and he tries to imagine life as an orphan. Was one an orphan if they were seventeen years old? He doesn’t really know. 

The life he is leaving behind is not a nice life at all, anyways. All he is leaving behind is poverty and solitude, so leaving America won’t hurt him much at all.

* * *

_ London, 1875  _

He searches for his brother in the crowd of people, but he is nowhere to be found. However, a woman does pull him aside, asking, “Five?”

“Yes?” His voice is impatient, trying to find Klaus. 

“I work for your brother’s company,” the woman explains. “Lila.”

“Is he not here?” Five asks, not trusting this woman at all. 

“Oh, he told me to give you this.”

Five reads through the letter quickly. Klaus explains that he is currently very busy, that Lila will be fine to take care of him and that he should trust her. It’s in his handwriting, so he knows that she is not lying. “Alright, fine,” he mutters. “Where do we go?” 

When they walk to the carriage, she explains to him that his brother lives on company grounds, that they aren’t far away and the carriage ride will be brief. She then starts to reverently speak of her place of employment, making Five raise his eyebrows in confusion. He’d never witnessed anybody who enjoys working as much as she seems to. 

“What exactly does your company produce?” Five asks. 

“Clockwork. We have many pocket watches like your own actually.” She gestures to his pocket watch, which he’d been absentmindedly fiddling with. The clock doesn’t work, actually, it hasn't for as long as he’s known, but his mother always told him that her guardian angel resided in it, that it would protect him when he needed it most, and that he was never to abandon it.

She’d gone mad before he was born. 

When Klaus had left him behind with her, he’d wondered how the watch was supposed to protect him, then. 

“Could I see it?” Lila asks.

“No,” Five snaps, shoving it in his coat pocket. Even if he doesn’t believe there’s anything special to it, his watch was all he really had now. It helped soothe his mother for him to have it, and it would feel disrespectful to her if he let anybody else near it. 

Lila gives him a bored look, not complaining about his sudden burst of anger. He wonders if it is pity, for the fact that he had just lost his mother, or if she simply doesn’t care. 

Either way, he doesn’t like the way that she watches him. He wonders if he can simply jump out of the carriage to avoid her, but he also  _ does  _ want to see Klaus. She was the easiest way he could get him to his brother, so he would wait until he reached him to stop speaking to her. 

This approach would have been fine, had he ever gotten to his brother at all.

  
  



	2. My Heart Is Not a Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Hopefully some of you guys have been interested in this story because it’s one I really enjoy! This chapter is dedicated to JjdoggieS, who has regularly been encouraging me to write more on this one! 💕

He doesn’t know how to do what she asks of him, flinching every time she opens her mouth, knowing he’ll disappoint her and suffer for it. Right now, as she ties him to his own bed, she tells him, “If you figure out how to travel time, I will let you eat again.” 

Five tries to answer, but she’s already gone by the time he’s able to formulate a response. 

He has no idea  _ what _ the woman is talking about, only that she is completely out of her mind. If he wasn’t convinced she would kill him for it, he would have already suggested this to her, that the ability to time travel was absurd and she was absurd as well. As it is, he simply keeps these thoughts to himself.

When he falls asleep, he tries to convince himself that tomorrow she will realize she has the wrong person. He does this every night, more to keep his mind intact while he is undergoing this torture. 

The next morning, though, he does it. 

He doesn’t know what finally tips him over the edge, only that one second he is praying for death and the next, his wounds are healing. 

Lila must figure it out from the look on his face, how he goes to touch where she has hurt him in awe, realizing what he’d done. 

“Excellent. You are now ready for the Handler.” 

“The  _ what?” _

She throws him an irritated glance. “You are to be wed, and you should be  _ grateful  _ for the opportunity.”

Grateful? He has never even met the Handler. Why would he want to marry someone he has never even had a discussion with?

_ “Why _ are they marrying me?” Five asks cautiously. 

Her brows raise. “You needn’t question the Handler.” When Lila walks away from him, having kept him in his own chambers today, he starts gnawing at his restraints, anxious to escape this place. He does not hear her voice anywhere, and his thoughts fill with prayers that he will manage to pass by her without getting caught. 

Just as he has managed to break out of the rope though, he hears a voice snap, “Dammit, Luther, I have this.”

Was this the Handler? Talking to one of his orderlies? Five reaches for the first object he can find, a jug of water, preparing himself to strike. When a man stumbles inside the room, he slams it down on his head. 

_ “Fuck!”  _

Five frowns, opening his mouth to ask who the man was, but when he glances up at him, eyeing him wearily, he decides to keep his mouth shut. 

When the silence becomes too much, though, he asks, “Are you, perchance, the Handler?” 

“The what?” 

“Evidently not. I need to escape this place, so if you would just kindly let me—”

“Well, obviously. I was  _ attempting  _ to save you.”

“Why are you attempting that, though? I don’t even know your name.”

“Ben. And you needn’t question the methods of the man who is trying to save your life.” Five starts to argue, but Ben is already grabbing his hand, darting off with him. 

“My name is Five, by the way,” he says, keeping up with his pace.

“Pleased to meet you.”

* * *

“Frankly, I do not understand why they all left at this hour,” Diego sniffs, and Vanya contemplates throwing her cutlery at him. He never understands why any of them ever go on missions, and the disdain he has towards him makes Vanya sick. “And, Vanya, please do not make that face. You weren’t so eager to join them, you know.”

“It is not the time of the day that is the problem,” Vanya snaps, insulted at the suggestion. Ben and Luther are out there, risking their lives to protect them, and Diego is trying to use it for theatrics. “My illness didn’t allow it.”

“Illness,” Diego sneers. “What an interesting word for it.” 

“Could we ever have just  _ one  _ meal in peace?” Allison asks, spreading her hands and staring heavenward. “Just  _ one?” _

“I apologize, Allison,” Vanya tells her, pointedly glaring at Diego, who just picks at his food delicately. When she glances up at the woman, she expects to see the usual exasperation, but, truly, she just looks resigned. “Have you been experiencing some struggles with…?”

“Yes.”

Vanya nods, used to her curt tone. It is not out of dislike for them by any means, but Allison always has something on her mind. Her husband may be the reason that the Academy is theirs, but, in truth, it is Allison who runs it. She has since Vanya came here from Russia, addicted to a drug that had been forced on her. One that had killed her parents. Having been taken in by Allison at a young age, she is indebted to her, and she tries her best to be as kind and helpful as she can.

“Has Luther been alright?”

“Yes… Though he’s been in the lab frequently.”

“Oh, yes, I noticed.” Her husband is a genius, but he’s a little absentminded, preferring his inventions to most human contact. Him being in the lab was  _ expected _ by this point to Vanya, but she knows that Allison wishes to spend time with her, that she loves him despite the fact that their marriage had been arranged. “Well, I suppose that it gives you a little time to yourself.”

She glances down. “I already have too much.”

* * *

When Ben had started searching the horrifying looking manor with Luther, he had not expected to meet the man beside him. Five keeps asking him questions, which is annoying because Ben is  _ trying  _ to save his life. 

“Stop talking,” he eventually hisses, crawling through the hallways. 

“Oh, no,” Five gasps. “Lila.”

Luther pops his head between them, making Ben realize how closely he and Five were standing together before. “Who is Lila?”

“She’s going to kill us all.”

“Theatric, this one.” At Ben’s sardonic tone, Five shoots him a glare, but he just shrugs. “We’ll take care of her.”

And they do  _ try _ , to clarify, but as soon as Luther’s axe connects to Lila’s shoulder, she just cocks her head to the side, voice sounding… tinny when she speaks, “You will r-r-regret this.” 

“Is that woman an android?” Luther asks, delightedly trying to search through her wiring. 

“We have to go.” Ben doesn’t argue with Five, grabbing onto him before Lila suddenly charges him, striking him quickly and causing him to lose consciousness. 

“Fickle things, those androids,” Luther sighs, picking up Five and crushing Lila before she can attack again. “Though I must admit, I feel shame hurting one, considering what they mean for the advancement of science.”

“Luther—”

“Yes, yes, I understand.” He hauls Five forward, darting through the manor until they reach their carriage, tossing him inside easily. Ben climbs in beside Five, and Luther takes the reins of the carriage.

“What will we tell Allison when we get back with an unconscious body?” Luther calls out, always worried about upsetting his wife.

“Perhaps we could say that he suffers from fainting spells, and the blood on him is purely coincidental,” Ben shouts back. 

Luther ponders his words, clearly not taking note of the sarcasm in his voice, likely thinking about tinkering with his inventions when he goes home. 

By the time they reach the Academy, though, Allison is fussing over Five enough that she doesn’t even bother asking who he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Updates will happen when they happen!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!!💕💕💕 Also, I’m slowly trying to get through comments rn, so I’ll be replying to a lot in the next few days💕💕💕💕


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